Mirai no Kage
by Kuzosama
Summary: TimeTravel. Deadfic. Shinobi are slowly fading away from existence, and the last few are killing each other. Sent back in time by the shadow of a man, it becomes apparent that the extinction of ninjado is unavoidable.
1. Shadows of the Future

**_Author's Notes: _Sorry about the stupid format, but FFdotNet's Document System has once again proved itself to be evil. Couldn't make the format like I wanted to, and you get this. Anyway let's start my speech; after months filled with blood, sweat and tears, my research has finally developed into a plot. I'll concentrate on this story first, and try not to stray. Then, running out of ideas, I mixed in some elements from my previous incomplete works in an attempt to make the story livelier. Research about Kyuubi comes from both the actual tale of the Bijuu and from Japanese Folklore, so its more of a hybrid history. Grab a cup of hot green tea, sit back, and relax. Enjoy the ride.  
**

_**Permanent Disclaimer: This piece of literature is merely for recreational purposes, and the author does not claim any monetary profit or ownership over the original works in any form or way. Any resemblances to real persons or groups, whether deceased or living, are purely coincidences and unintentional, unless specified otherwise by the author himself. Research from various sites has been made prior to the creation of this fan fiction. Should there be any doubts concerning the facts or sources, whether relating to credibility, origin or otherwise, please contact the author via information accessible from his profile immediately.**_

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_**Genre: **Action/Adventure/Tragedy_

**_Rating:_**_T; Suitable for teens 13 years and older, minor violence/suggestive themes._

_**Summary: **Shinobi_ _are slowly fading away from existence, and the last few are killing each other. Sent back in time by the shadow of a man, it becomes apparent that the extinction of ninjado is unavoidable._

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_Kitsune__ sometimes are not truly good or evil. Quite literally, as spirits, they embody the concept of amoral, those who do not accept, or understand, the idea of Good or Evil, instead paving the way of balance between the two._

_-excerpt from a source of wikipedia

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**Mirai ****no Kage**  
__ -By Kuzosama_

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___**Chapter I  
Shadows of the Future**_

* * *

Naruto crouched behind a tree, both his energy and Kyuubi's almost thoroughly spent. 

Before him, Sasuke was still deep in pursuit of his locations, desperately seeking a way to finally put and end to the blonde's life.

Suppressing the urge to growl, Naruto checked his weapons pouch for any kunai or shuriken that he might have missed. None. He no longer had any weapons with him. Smoke bombs, talismans – all he was left with were his claws, fangs and what little chakra that he might have preserved.

He couldn't die here. He had to restore the glory of Konoha.

If he, the last Hokage, were to die, there would be nobody left to protect what was left of Konoha – a small group of shinobi – or keep their spirits up long enough to survive. The Otokage would slaughter them all, no doubt.

Even – even Sakura, who now lay fainted a few jumps' length from him.

Damn, he had to do this now, while Sasuke was still not alerted to his presence. Sasuke was only a jump away from him. He could do this before he was noticed. Baring his fangs and extending his claws, he leapt in a charging attack towards the Otokage, his speed further pumped by his last remaining chakra.

The white haired Uchiha instantly turned to face him, eyes wide in shock and hands unready to protect himself from the deathblow that Naruto was about to land on him.

**_

* * *

_**

He turned his head to the sudden surge of chakra, and his now sharingan-less eyes widened, his hand limp by his side and unable to defend himself from the fox boy's incoming attack. The claws were aimed to impale his heart, and the fangs were ready to bite his neck should that fail. There was no time even for him to mold chakra.

He squeezed his eyes shut, flinching – something he had learned not to do in battle – he felt an impact strike his body and the whole of his life then flashed before his eyes.

There was Kabuto, swearing his loyalty to Sasuke as he took Orochimaru's life and claiming the title of Otokage.

Sakura, moments before she buffed herself with chakra, permanently assuming the form of an animal.

The now beastly Sakura killing his aide - killing Kabuto.

Naruto's massive bulk growing with his ninth tail, his whole body covered in blood.

More flashes.

The distant past.

Fleeing with the first Sound Five.

His first Chuunin Exam in Konoha.

Running away, wounded, from Orochimaru along with Sakura in the Forest of Death.

Zabuza, Haku.

Tazuna, Tsunami and Inari.

Naruto and Sakura's forms during the Genin bell test.

Naruto was attacking Kakashi with his clones in the air, and Sakura was fainted on the ground from a Genjutsu, while he himself was still stuck in a Shinjuu Zanshuu no Jutsu.

The situation was uncannily similar to that of now... Naruto in a jumping attack, Sakura motionless in the shelter of trees and leaves wounded from the fight and himself in a vulnerable position.

Then Kakashi turned to face him, his single visible eye filled with guilt, regret and sorrow, and his vision was flooded with white.

**_

* * *

_**

She was on a bed.

It had been too long since she last woke up in a bed.

Fifteen, maybe twenty years? More than twenty five years? She couldn't remember.

Even though she felt weaker than she had before, her body showed no signs of pain from the battle with Sasuke, where she had passed out under the trees.

She rubbed her eyes with the back of her right hand.

Wait a minute, hand?

She opened her eyes. The world was in real color.

It did not have the usual sepia tint to it as seen from her half-beast eyes.

She was human again – she didn't know how, but she was, and weaker again – and she also was in a room.

A room, by kami's name, and it was lavishly furnished to please a princess.

She couldn't imagine a place in the world so intact after the war had struck the entire shinobi continent.

She touched her face. It was smooth skin and her scars were gone, by some medical jutsu probably.

There was a mirror in the room and she wanted to see what she looked like, if she was human again.

Standing up, she was immediately disoriented by how immense the world was – or how short she seemed to be now that she was human again.

She kept repeating the words in her head, human again. What a miracle.

Finally catching a glimpse of herself, her jaw dropped in shock at the sight before her eyes.

In the mirror, surprise written across her face, was a young pink-haired adolescent girl wearing red. 

_****__Tsuzuku..._


	2. Not Kakashi!

**_Author's Notes: _About Team 7's sensei? He's not an OC. You'll find out who he is when he... Oops, almost gave away the story there. Well, enjoy this chapter while I try to prepare Chapter III, which will hopefully be longer. Italics signify thoughts.**

**(Thought of the Day: Hell, is anyone even reading this at all? Darn it I need reviews.)**

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_The true master of war is therefore never known for his brilliance_

_-Chinese Philosopher Sun Tzi_

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**Mirai** **no Kage**

_-By Kuzosama_

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_**Chapter II  
Not Kakashi!**_

* * *

His hand impaled the man's chest. Grabbing the heart, he crushed it before kicking away the body from him. Jumping off and sliding on the ground he wiped his bloody hand on his pants. 

Looking at the corpse, he widened his eyes in shock. It was not the body of Sasuke, but a blue haired man wearing a bandana. Touching the weight behind his back he found a scroll which he planted into the ground.

The place he was in looked different from a while ago, it had more trees, and he wasn't sensing any active genjutsu being used.

Turning his head to analyze the area, his eyes rested on a tuft of brown hair. Immediately, his eyes began to water and he rushed at the man, hugging him.

"I-Iruka..." he trembled.

* * *

Color slowly faded into his vision as he blinked in confusion. 

_I'm not dead..?_ He looked around, and recognized the place as the old Uchiha Mansion that he had burned down himself during the Third Ninja War. The wooden floors were still intact and none of the paper doors had holes in them.

Stepping to an open window, he saw the whole city still intact, and heard numerous distant voices chatting merrily. He activated his sharingan with his remaining chakra, and didn't notice any chakra activity to signify usage of a genjutsu technique, so he must have returned to the past, somehow, probably with Naruto and Sakura as well.

His mind no longer was clouded, and he pondered over the sins he had committed while he was still under the influence of the cursed seal, and while he had reigned as Otokage.

He thought about how Sakura had killed his villagers and how Naruto had slaughtered his children...

_I had committed heinous crimes, but Konoha had done far more to me than I ever could claim. I was a traitor, maybe, but that was due to Orochimaru's seal. However, Konoha had no reason to wipe out all that was important to me after I had killed Itachi._

_But for now, I would stay low, and pretend that I'm not angry at them at all..._

_I would be their friend, for a while, just like they always dreamed I would be._

_There was a reason dreams were called dreams._

_And I'll be the one to show them why._

* * *

"Naruto..." Iruka muttered worriedly at the boy who had suddenly assaulted him earlier, "Are you okay?" 

"Iruka," Naruto choked back a sob, "Y-you're alive?" _I missed you so much, Iruka-senpai... And to think you still look so young, when I thought that you had died..._

Iruka patted the blonde's hair, chuckling nervously, "Of course I am, Naruto, I couldn't let myself be killed by someone as weak as Mizuki, could I?" _That traitor was strong, damn it._

"M-Mizuki? Who's that?" _The name sounds familiar, somehow..._

"Nobody special, Naruto, not anyone you should know..." _Seems that the shock of killing a fellow shinobi has gotten to him._ "Naruto, here, your hitai-ate. I'll need to visit the Hokage for a while, you should return home first. Do you need me to help you?"

"H-home? Where?" _The Hokage... Isn't that me?_

"I'll take you, Naruto." _It looks like it had a greater impact than I first expected. This calls for immediate attention. I hope the Sandaime has a solution..._

Iruka then helped Naruto up and proceeded to escort him home.

* * *

Sakura was distressed. 

After she had woken up in her room, she had found that she was back in her younger human body. During her genin period, it would seem, from the state of her hair.

When she first saw her mother, she had been calm, but she was unable to sleep that night, and she had cried until the crack of dawn. Then, when the sky had brightened up, she had been called by her parents to go to the academy, where she was at now.

Around her, her dead comrades were chatting loudly, as students that had just graduated from the academy. There was Chouji, who had died in the Third Ninja War, munching on a bag of chips. Beside him, Shikamaru who was sacrificed in the failed mission against Iwa was relaxed, muttering something to Chouji that she couldn't catch.

And she wondered if she was the only one who had been sent to this parallel dimension. Were the Rokudaime Hokage and the Nidaime Otokage also in this world? If they were, things could get dangerous, and it might be difficult to prevent the shinobi continents from falling to each other again.

However, if they could convert Sasuke back to a Konoha-nin, now that he no longer had the cursed seal (she hoped), it would be much easier to preserve the existence of shinobi.

The sound of the door opening snapped her to her senses. It was Sasuke, with a stoic expression on his face, and the moment she saw him, a glimmer of hope rose in her chest. The Otokage would not have acted like this; they might have a chance, after all.

* * *

Sakura had looked at him with hope in her eyes. His performance was as expected of a Kage, acting with a failure rate of one in ten thousand. He looked away from the mass of fangirls and rested his chin on his fingers, as he did years ago in this very same room. 

Sakura started to approach him, and he glanced at her coldly. As she opened her mouth to speak, she was once again interrupted by the door opening. The Rokudaime looked like he had his soul sucked out of him as he stepped into the room, dragging his feet.

Sasuke had to try hard to suppress a victorious – although he was rather suspicious – smirk at his demeanor. As Naruto stumbled into a seat behind him, Iruka also entered the room. The Chuunin clapped his hands loudly to catch their attention, and the remaining students went to sit on whichever remaining empty seats there were left.

He breathed a silent sigh of relief as Sakura reluctantly left for her own place beside Naruto's, glancing worriedly at his exhausted form.

* * *

Naruto knew that Sakura was worried about him, but he, as the 6th Hokage, had more pressing matters to attend to. An example would be the crisis that the whole shinobi community was facing. 

Apparently, he, Sakura and Sasuke had been transported to a parallel dimension where they took on the lives of their younger self again.

He assumed that they had assimilated into the bodies and minds of their younger selves so that they actually had their younger bodies, yet their power was slightly more than what they had before the inter-dimensional warp.

This was actually caused by the fusion of the chakra from their original selves and their parallel selves. He was worried as to how their seals were affected.

He had requested an audience with the Third Hokage yesterday, and after explaining what, as he understood, had happened, he and the Sandaime had discussed, with the presence of the council, what to do about the crisis.

Their presence will undoubtedly cause an imbalance in the time flow of this dimension, so they would need to solve one more problem other than preserving the existence of shinobi throughout the lands.

The Sandaime had agreed to keep watch over Sasuke as he was still suspicious of the boy, but he doubted that the Sandaime would be able to defeat Sasuke as they are now.

He, Sasuke and Sakura, if Sasuke were to prove his loyalty to Konoha, would be given the rank of Jounin and special permission by both the Third Hokage and the council to do as they please so as to be able to help take preventive measures before the world was engulfed in war once again.

For now, though, the Sandaime had arranged for a powerful shinobi – one with the name of Rasen that he claimed to be the most powerful shinobi he had known – to be their sensei. He doubted that anyone was more powerful than Sasuke, but he'd give this Rasen the benefit of the doubt.

Soon, Iruka-senpai should call for the three of them to explain the arrangements.

"Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke, please meet me immediately after the others have left to meet their teams."

_There it is_, Naruto stood up and shook his head to clear it of all thought before walking towards where Sakura and Sasuke were already confusedly waiting for him with Iruka-senpai.

* * *

He fumbled with his hitai-ate, pulling it taut over his eyes as a blindfold. Blowing his spiked gray hair out of his face, he knelt down to tighten the black bandages around his calves and forearms. Standing back up to dust off his black clothes, he pulled his muffler over his jaw. 

Once he had made sure that he looked presentable, he finally reached for the door and slid it open, stepping inside the classroom.

The moment he did, pieces of chalk and dusters flew at him; at high velocity. Grinning confidently, he dodged each projectile with practiced ease before suddenly finding one dangerously close to his face.

* * *

_Just as expected,_ Sakura narrowed her eyes disappointedly, failing to remain inconspicuous to Sasuke as she recalled Naruto's explanation a few minutes ago, in the absence of Sasuke of course. _Even someone of his level is unable to dodge the last trap. If he's this weak, then Sasuke could slaughter him in ten minutes. Never mind that, if he doesn't dodge that he'd die._

She was surprised, however, as the chalk immediately disintegrated before her eyes.

"H-how..?" she stuttered at the space in front of their new sensei's face where the chalk had been pulverized into dust. It would seem that she had underestimated this guy by a long shot.

They might have a chance against extinction after all.

It wouldn't be easy, but they actually might, with this Rasen-sensei's help.

And of course, also with an extra little bit of luck.

**_Tsuzuku..._**


End file.
